


A Woman's Work

by luxdancer



Category: Mage: the Awakening, World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: F/M, LARP characters, Mentions of miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-11 07:22:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxdancer/pseuds/luxdancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A scene that other PCs didn't get to see.</p>
<p>She lost the baby because of magic, and this is how she deals.</p>
<p>Charlotte is an Obrimos Guardian of the Veil, her husband Will is a Mastigos Silver Ladder. They come from a community of Sleepwalker dynasties (Proximus).</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Woman's Work

A woman's work is never done.

The words come unbidden, surfacing from some half-remembered recollection of a dinner party – my mother, other Summerside wives, gathered in the kitchen washing dishes, sharing wry smiles while their husbands argue politics in the parlour.

_“N-uh, nuh more magic,” her words slur from the effect of the sedatives and painkillers. She pushes the hands of the Life mage away clumsily. “Will? I need to see muh husband-” The Life mage and the sleepwalker doctor exchange looks as she tries to push herself off the gurney, managing only to spin to the linoleum floor. She clenches her fists to her distended abdomen, feeling the stress on her body despite the numbed nerve endings, feeling the influence of the rush of hormones on her mind. She breaks down sobbing. “Not gonna work, is it?”_

_The sleepwalker doctor kneels down in front of her, “I don't think the fetus will survive without magical assistance and I can't honestly say what damage this will have on your reproductive system.”_

_She looks up at the Life mage, his dreadlocks haloed by the florescent light._

_“I always wanted to be a mother.”_

It feels strange, being back in this military-grade combat gear - the night sight goggles strapped to my face, the world in digital green and black. Any psych evaluator worth their salt would say that I'm running back into the safety of the familiar – instead of moving forward. Lucky for me, Guardians don't get psych evaluation – at least, not for something so prosaic. They will use you until you break, or you're smart enough to get out – and even then, they're still using you. It is a sacrifice, one I give willingly.

_“The baby didn't survive, Will.”_

_“I can be there tomorrow.”_

_“No. I'm fine. You have Consilium business, the Ladder.” She looks out the clinic window, watching a young mother lift her infant from a car seat._

_“Charlotte, my place is with you.”_

_She doesn't respond for a long time, silence on the line. “Remember when we met?”_

_She can almost hear his smile. “Toronto, I was articling and you were-”_

_“On Guardian business.”_

_“Yes. That.”_

_“Remember we had lives before we met each other? We didn't even Awake-”_

_“Until that day.”_

_Her voice breaks, she struggles to compose herself. “That day-” They both go quiet as they are taken back to an autumn day - blood on the fallen leaves, blood on his fine wool coat and the reflection of the Supernal world they saw in each others' gaze, reaching through each other to the Watchtowers._

I never know how it'll go, how I'll walk away from it or if I'll walk away from it at all. Some nights, I wake up, still hearing screams. I'd be unable to look at my reflection in the mirror and my resolve wavers. Those nights are bad. There were times, of course, when I'd finish, wash up, and go to dinner – and feel nothing at all. Those are worse. 

_She saw heaven in his eyes, a world purified and perfected. It made her want to see that world with her own eyes, to protect that dream of heaven. He never really described what he saw through her, though she could piece it together from what other Mastigos had described. It made her sad to think that was what he saw in her._

“June 21, Eagle is in position, copy.”

“Copy. Moving to location, over.” Far below me, the roads are cast in gold and black, punctuated by the glow of car lights. The winds batter themselves against me, making the voice from the earpiece sound even more distant. Somewhere among the high-rises, my sniper vigilantly watches my back. I don't know his name, or if he is really a he – and I probably never will.

_“It was a girl.”_

_He's silent, she imagines the view outside their townhouse. Maybe he's standing in the empty room that was supposed to be a nursery, his hand on the rail of the mahogany wood crib that they couldn't stop from buying even though they were waiting for the second trimester. “We can try again.” His tone is hopeful._

_She wants to cry, feels a prisoner of the hormones and fights back her sobs. “I took a mission, Will.”_

_“What? Why? Charlotte...”_

_“I needed to.”_

_“Is this because-”_

_“No- yes,” she pauses, curling the telephone cord around her hands. “I just need to.”_

_“Please, don't, Charlotte. Please come back.” Between the static of the line hangs a thousand unsaid things, she can feel them, formless, in the back of her mind. She can hear them in his voice. She doesn't want to give them shape, afraid naming them will break her heart. “Please come back to me.” They both know that each mission is a razor's edge dance with death or something worse, the corruption of the Awakened soul._

_All he wants is to talk her back from the edge and all she wants to do is is dance._

It feels like the winter wind is carrying me, I am lighter than air as I move across the snow-heavy rooftop. I find the ventilation shaft, carefully pushing it open, heat radiating across my face. I find a stable place for the hook of my repelling line and shoulder the automatic rifle, looking up at the black sky. My hand finds its way to the place where that baby should have been.

_“I always wanted to be a mother,” she said, but her voice becomes terse. “But I will always be a Guardian first.”_

I smile into the darkness of the ventilation shaft, flipping the safety on my rifle.

“A woman's work is never done.”


End file.
